CALCIFIC AORTIC VALVE STENOSIS: A CLINICO- PATHOLOGIC CORRELATION OF 22 CASES*

T H E importance of calcific aortic valve stenosis is manifest when one considers that it occurs in any age group, produces symptoms which are not common to other valvular lesions and may result in sudden death without previous cardiac decompensation. Too frequently the lesion at autopsy has been entirely unsuspected. Symptoms of cardiac disease may be absent despite marked valvular stenosis and postmortem evidences of valvular dis-ease of long duration. This condition has been known to pathologists as calcareous or calcified aortic valve stenosis, calcific sclerosis of the aortic valve, atherosclerotic cal-cification of the aortic valve, calcific nodular valvular sclerosis, Monckeberg's annular or aortic sclerosis and primary ascending sclerosis of the aortic valve. Although accurately described by Monckeberg x as far back as 1904, its only interest was as an occasional postmortem finding. It is hoped that this study, through the close correlation between clinical and pathological material, may shed some light on the diagnosis of thi